NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover acquired this picture from about 10 inches (25 centimeters) away from the Loch Leven goal utilizing the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), situated on the turret on the finish of the rover’s robotic arm, in broad daylight on June 16, 2024, Mars Science Laboratory mission sol 4216 (or sol 4216), at 05:12:12 UTC.
Land planning deadline: Tuesday, June 25, 2024
As documented in A Previous blog last week, we proceed to juggle vitality constraints as we deal with analyzing the newest pattern drilled on Mars: Mammoth Lakes 2. At this time, the star of the present is the deliberate touchdown of the SAM (Pattern Evaluation at Mars Instrument Array) and superior gasoline evaluation of the drill pattern. This exercise requires quite a lot of energy, so the workforce needed to be even handed in planning different scientific observations and balancing the ability wants of various actions.
Whereas the workforce eagerly awaits the outcomes of SAM and CheMin (X-ray Diffraction Instrument for Chemistry and Mineralogy) analyzes of Mammoth Lakes 2, we proceed to acquire different observations on this fascinating area that may assist in our interpretations of the mineralogical knowledge. ChemCam (chemistry device and digicam) will fireplace the laser atLake Leven” to acquire extra chemical knowledge on a goal beforehand analyzed by APXS (alpha particle A mosaic of an adjoining space with fascinating patches of sunshine and darkish colours inside uncovered rocks. Mastcam (mast digicam, for colour stills and video) will doc and picture the Mammoth Lakes 2 drill gap ChemCam goal and surrounding fines to watch any wind-induced modifications , and we’ll additionally get extensions of the earlier two Mastcam mosaics: “Camp 4” and “Falls Ridge.”
To proceed monitoring atmospheric situations, the workforce additionally deliberate to survey giant mud utilizing Navcam (grayscale stereoscopic navigation cameras) and Mastcam tau, an overhead imager to measure mud within the environment above Curiosity. The actions of DAN (Dynamic Neutron Reflectometry Instrument), REMS (Rover Surroundings Monitoring Station) and RAD (Radiation Evaluation Detector) full the plan.
Written by Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist on the College of New Brunswick
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